


Fairy Tale Endings

by Cadhla



Category: 10th Kingdom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cadhla/pseuds/Cadhla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after the first happy ever after ends? And how do you handle a Wolf -- or wolfs -- in New York City?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fairy Tale Endings

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Grevling

 

 

_My name is Virginia, and I live on the edge of the forest..._

*

WOLF AND VIRGINIA: HEROICS FOR A LADY.

*

Wolf viewed the Babies R Us with dubious wariness, his expression clearly broadcasting the turmoil within. He'd learned to dread the strange, boxy shops of this new Kingdom, with their self-contained weather and their captive chemical smells. But if Virginia was going in -- and by extension, taking his cub -- then he was honor-bound to follow. But oh, huff-puff, the smells! The horrible bright caustic smells! And the sound, oh, that horrible tinny stuff that pretended was music, piped in from all sides until a wolf couldn't hear himself thinking. How could they bear it?

Virginia paused in front of the automatic doors as they hushed open, looking back over her shoulder at the father of her child and the man who would eventually be her husband (even if he already considered himself her mate, and argued that to wolfs, mating was far more important than marriage; mates or not, she was going to get married someday). "Wolf? Is something wrong?"

 _Yes. We're walking into a frozen box filled with plastic and badsmell, not running into the woods to find the perfect tree to cut and craft and carve with our own hands, and I don't understand how this Kingdom survives when you keep packaging your cubs the same way you package food,_ he thought, borderline-frantic. Forcing his lips to curve upwards into a smile, he said, "No, my sweet. Merely considering the import of the quest of the day."

"You are so strange sometimes," she said, laughter painting the edges of her perfect voice. "Come on. We have a lot to get finished today."

Knowing that she would never understand the heroics he performed on her behalf, Wolf stepped forward, took her elbow, and allowed her to lead him into the store.

*

WENDELL AND THE WOLFS: DID MY GRANDMOTHER ENJOY HER COFFIN?

*

None of Wendell's advisors -- save, perhaps, for Tony, who had come to understand him better as a man for knowing him as a dog than all the nobles in all the Kingdoms ever would -- could quite resign themselves to their new king's equally new insistence on doing things for himself. "But sire," they'd say, in a dozen different ways, none of which could hide the slavering whine of betas showing throat before the alpha, "that's what you have manservants for! Your royal presence is best seen from the throne room, where it can be protected."

"Did my grandmother enjoy being displayed in a glass coffin?" he asked them. And when they cringed and cowered and stammered their various negations, he said, "Neither do I," and rode off to do what he was going to do in the first place.

This time, he was on his way into the Great Wood, which had begun to show signs of life again, now that the Huntsman was gone and no longer slaughtering all those who happened to stumble across his path. Reports from Little Lamb Village said that wolfs had been seen running through the trees, with their moon-mad eyes all full of yellow wildness. How he hoped that this time, they were right. He was getting tired of chasing phantoms.

There was movement up ahead, as of something diving into the brush. It could have been a deer, or a feral dog, but the wood was silent all around him; no birds sang, no rabbits rustled. That, more than anything, made him suspect that he might have found his quarry at last. Pulling his horse to a stop -- a sweet old nag whose sense of smell was legendarily poor, making her the perfect steed for a mission like this -- he called, "This is King Wendell White, looking for the leader of the wolfs in this wood. Please. I am alone, and am no more armed than is necessary to guarantee my safety from the less-intelligent creatures."

The voice came from behind him, not ahead, close enough to make him jump slightly, even though he'd been expecting it. "What does a King want with us? We've harmed no men, huff-puff, eaten no delicious little lambs. Done nothing to be harried." The accenting on the words, the way they were stressed and put together, was so like Wolf that Wendell could have laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it. These were the wolfs he'd been looking for. These were the wolfs he'd _needed_.

"I am here," he said, with the utmost sincerity, "to inform you that one of your number was responsible for saving my life, and to invite you to join the society of my Kingdom as free wolfs. No persecution, no punishments for being what you are."

There were eyes all around him now, faces where before he'd seen only patterns of leaf and shadow. Sweet Snow White, how many were there, etching out an existence in these trees? How many had been suffering? Men, women, and children melting into view around him, some of them so young that their eyes were still liquid and enormous, begging the world for clemency that had never once been granted...

The speaker stepped entirely into view, distracting Wendell from the faces in the shadows. This wolf was older, grizzled and scarred, with a certain feral hardness to his expression that spoke clearly of how many battles he had fought to bring his family to even this small safety. "Is this a trap?"

"No," said Wendell, and smiled. "This is a home."

*

WOLF AND VIRGINIA: THAT'S TRADITIONAL.

*

Virginia collapsed onto the couch of the tiny walk-up apartment she shared with Wolf, eyes closed even before her shoulders hit the pillows. "Wake me when this gets easier," she commanded. "Better yet, wake me when I'm dead."

"That's traditional, yes," said Wolf, watching her anxiously. "If you die, I'll put you in a crystal coffin and weep for a year and a day before cracking the lid for one last kiss which will suck the piece of poisoned apple from your throat, or wipe the poisoned honey from your lips, or shake the poisoned needle from your paw."

Virginia cracked open an eye. "If you know that'll work, why would you wait a year and a day?"

Wolf shrugged. "If I don't, how do I know it will work?"

Sometimes living with a man who was literally straight out of a fairy tale was an adventure in and of itself. Virginia closed her eye again, letting herself slump slowly sideways on the couch. "Go get dinner," she said, the plaintive tone of her voice making it less an order than a plea. "I don't care what it is, as long as I don't have to cook it, clean up after it, or even think about cooking it or cleaning up after it."

"Dinner!" Wolf sprang to his feet, bounding over to plant a kiss on her forehead before diving for the door. "Fear not, my sweet creampuff! I shall hunt and kill and return in victory!"

Too late, Virginia realized her mistake. "Take-out Chinese would be fine!" she cried, sitting upright.

He was already gone.

*

TONY AND THE TROLLS: ECOLOGICAL CIVILITY.

*

"Go talk to the trolls, Anthony; go tell the trolls they need to stop throwing their trash into the river, Anthony; go remind the trolls that we have a truce now, Anthony," muttered Tony to himself as he walked along the crumbling path into the neighboring Troll Kingdom. For all that he sometimes resented Wendell's casual assumption that Tony would do whatever he was told, he also found it comforting. He was needed. He was finally, after a life spent looking for meaning, in a place where he was needed. It was just that sometimes, what he was needed for was lecturing the trolls on personal responsibility and why we don't pollute the drinking water of our neighbors.

The trolls had been warned that he'd be coming, less to give them time to clean up their acts than to give them time to (hopefully) put on pants. One visit where they hadn't bothered had been more than enough for him. He still got shivers thinking of it. Blabberwort and Bluebell were waiting for him at the end of the path, the two troll regents shifting their weight uncomfortably from foot to foot as they watched his slow approach.

He offered a shallow bow. It seemed only polite.

"Greetings from the Fourth Kingdom," he said.

The trolls continued to eye him mistrustfully.

"I carry a request from King Wendell."

Still they said nothing.

Tony sighed. "I brought shoes. Now can we talk?"

Blabberwort and Bluebell were suddenly all smiles. "Greetings, oh most honored guest from the Fourth Kingdom!" "Most handsome, royal, and _honored_ guest!" "I already said that." "I said it _better_."

Tony sighed again.

This was going to be a long day.

*

WOLF AND VIRGINIA: INHERITED TRAITS.

*

Virginia was six months into her pregnancy -- far enough along to get harassed by strangers on the street who seemed to think that her expanding belly had somehow left the borders of her 'personal space' bubble, and was thus public property -- and it was time for another of the most dreaded trials of the whole process. The pre-natal doctor's visit.

It didn't help that Wolf was clearly even more anxious than she was, an anxiety that only increased whenever hospitals became involved. Coming from a world where wolfs were often hunted and killed, and where pregnant women were expected to just eat all the food they could hold and sit around waiting for the babies to pop out, seeing special doctors seemed to him like an invitation to trouble. "If babies were as easy to break as your world seems to think they are, none of us would have been born to make them," he'd say, uneasily.

She had to admit that he had a point.

Still, there was something miraculous about holding tight to his hand as the flickering ghost-shape of their baby appeared on the monitor, a little monochrome miracle. "There he is," said the nurse, tone reassuring. "Everything looks like it's where it ought to be."

Virginia laughed through her tears, holding tight to Wolf's hand while he stared in stunned adoration at the screen.

The nurse's voice turned uncertain as she said, "I...hold on, I seem to be getting some...this is highly irregular."

Virginia sat up, suddenly cold. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"I'm getting some interference." The nurse's laugh was high and strangled. "The equipment must be malfunctioning. It seems to think your baby has a tail."

"Told you I was the father," said Wolf, squeezing her hand again.

*

TONY AND WENDELL: WISHES WISHED.

*

"Long day?" asked Wendell, when the scuffed, muddy Tony came dragging himself into the palace kitchen.

Tony didn't answer in words. He just turned his head, and glared.

"Rather thought so." Wendell took a swig of his hot honeyed tea. "The wolfs are coming."

"You found them?" asked Tony, interest getting through his irritation.

"Some," Wendell said, with a nod. "About twenty were living in the Great Wood. They'll pass the word that my lands are safe for them. We may get some sheep-harrying for a bit, but I think they'll do well here."

"Most people do."

The two of them sat quiet for a long while, Wendell drinking his tea, Tony pouring himself a mug of ale. Finally, Wendell broke the silence, asking, "Do you think they'll ever come home?"

Tony sighed. "I hope so."

*

WOLF AND VIRGINIA: WISHES GRANTED.

*

"--isn't here, and it's hard without him, and it's hard with you, I love you, but--"

"--here are so strange, not yours, your smell is perfect, but all the other smells are just so _strange_ \--"

"--like you, it doesn't seem fair to make him grow up in a world where--"

"--other wolfs, wolfs that he can talk to, and--"

"--Wolf--"

"--Virginia--"

And together: "--let's go _home_."

They stopped there, simply staring at each other for a long moment. And then, laughing, they fell into one another's arms, hands seeking hair, lips seeking lips. There would be so much to do, bags to pack, baby furniture to disassemble, and yet that didn't matter. Not a bit of it did. They were going home.

*

_And they all lived happily ever after._

 


End file.
